"Sharks!"
And with this impressive conclusion, the worthy Captain turned on his heel and walked off.
We had run three parts of the way down the Red Sea, and were now anchored close to the Arabian shore, just off the Turkish fort of Koomfidah, the low massive wall of which stood out white and bare in the blistering sunshine, while beyond it stretched, far as the eye could reach, the dim immensity of the great central desert.
Our vessel lay fully a mile and a half from the shore, although it seemed within a stone's-throw in the clearness of that wonderful atmosphere. But between us and the interminable waste of flat sandy beach the clear bright water was flecked with a broad band of white, very much like a streak of thick cream, marking the whereabouts of one of those treacherous coral reefs which make the Red Sea as dangerous a place as any in the world.
Outside the reef where we lay the sea was still heaving restlessly from the effects of the gale that had blown overnight; but the broad shallow lagoon within was as calm as a mill-pond. Half a dozen gaunt, swarthy Arabs were splashing and wallowing in the smooth water with shouts of delight, which were very tantalizing to us as we "stood on the burning deck," with the very pitch melting between the planks under the intolerable heat. Others still were trooping down to the beach in their long white robes, like a train of ghosts, from the little group of tumble-down mud hovels which, clustering around the outer wall of the fort, represented the "town" of Koomfidah.
Their bathing-place was of course safe enough, for no shark could enter there; but as if on purpose to show us how little they cared for this, several of the nearest Arabs scrambled across the reef and began to swim toward us; and in a twinkling the water around our ship swarmed with dusky figures (including not a few round-faced "pickaninnies" who could not have been more than six or seven years old at the outside), plashing and paddling about as merrily as if no such thing as a shark had ever been heard of.
"Some o' them chaps'll be gettin' picked up, if they don't look out," said a young sailor, looking down at them over the bows.
"Not they!" rejoined a veteran "salt," who had made the Red Sea voyage many a time before. "Sharks never touches a Harab."
"Nor a darky neither," added another. "I've see'd the darkies in the West Injies, jist afore they dived, put tar on the palms o' their 'ands where they was rubbed white, so as to give the sharks nothin' to aim at, like."
"I take it them Harabs ain't good enough to suit Mr. Shark's taste, and mayhap it's the same way with the darkies," said No. 1, with a grin.